IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The internet's growth in the past two decades has reshaped how Americans live — how we communicate, how we shop, how we consume information and how we enjoy entertainment. But too many people find themselves on the outside of this digital revolution.

Unfortunately, one of the populations with the most to gain from the internet, older adults, is the least likely to be connected.

The City of Philadelphia has issued a request for proposal (RFP) to rapidly quantify the number of households that are without internet connectivity or relying on unstable, low-bandwidth options.

The RFP, issued with non-profit the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia, seeks to enable the city to benchmark its progress on closing the digital divide and inform the next phase of policy, programme and budget decisions.

Some may question whether digital inclusion is merely an unnecessary luxury for entertainment and personal communication. Should we really care whether low-income children and adults can access Facebook or YouTube?

But with a moment's thought, even casual observers should realize that digital exclusion limits the educational opportunities available to excluded children and adults. And the educational importance of Internet access can only increase in the future as public schools and municipal governments find themselves less and less able to provide wide access to traditional hard-copy educational materials.

The Southern California city of Riverside was the richest city per-capita in the United States. A few years earlier, a handful of orange trees had been planted in the fertile soil of the young town, giving birth to the California citrus industry. Spurred by cutting-edge technologies like refrigerated rail cars and innovative irrigation systems, the industry — and Riverside — thrived.

Officials in Harlingen, Texas, are considering a range of options to bridge the digital divide, including working with broadband service providers, teaming up with Cameron County and searching for grant money.

After about two years of planning, the city's project aimed at bridging a digital divide that's swallowed about a third of households here is on hold.

In 2006, the frenzy of “free” municipal wireless networks was in full swing. This sparked interesting debates between community activists and telecommunications companies, called telcos.

From a community perspective, the conventional wisdom was that free Wi-Fi was the way to extend Internet access to underserved communities. The question was how to pay for the wireless networks, what good would they do, and what was the best business model for sustaining and expanding them.

There are better ways to close the digital divide

Dallas leaders look to build their own fiber network using $82 million in taxpayer dollars in a city with no shortage of broadband options. They are moving forward with this plan despite the city having a 98% coverage rate of 5G wireless service.

The city has recently consulted on a plan to make Dallas a “smart city,” with wireless internet access everywhere within its borders.

Technology is moving fast. And for those who can’t keep up with it as it advances, they might be left behind. Begin able to keep up is especially important for students and those trying to navigate the business world.

In fact, almost 2.8 million Texas households lack broadband access. To bridge the gap between the haves and have nots, organizations such as the Dallas Innovation Alliance and CardBoard Project are hosting Get Connected-Dallas for the Oak Cliff community March 25 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at South Oak Cliff High School, located at 3601 S Marsalis Ave.

These rural entrepreneurs are representative of the hundreds of thousands of Texans in rural communities all across our state, families and businesses that truly represent an integral part of our Texas economy.

Yet, think how much the world has changed in 100 years for these families and their farm and ranching businesses. Cultivating a crop and moving cattle to market today relies far more heavily on technology than they did just a decade ago. The need is ever increasing for greater connectivity across rural America.

Clint Randall, Healthy Communities coordinator for the PCPC, explained in an interview with Government Technology that while traditional public forums generate some detailed feedback, it’s typically from a limited number of constituents.

“Customarily speaking, the primary tool for outreach is simply to hold public meetings, but there are clear limitations to that,” he said.

Experts worry that the National Broadband Plan, a mandate currently being considered by policy-makers as a way to bring broadband to every home, would create a digital divide, setting speed goals for rural areas that are 25 times slower than urban areas.

Such a divide would curtail rural educational opportunities such as distance learning and threaten consumer welfare by limiting rural telemedicine initiatives.

If telecommunications is the central nervous system of the modern economy, some remote parts of the region are still playing with skeletons.

But a plan to use state technology grants to expand the ubiquity of broadband connections across a five-county Central Sierra region could reverse that trend.

"To me, this is exciting," said Wells, 62.

With the help of a federal grant, folks from the Pasco County Library System set up 10 Internet-ready laptop computers at a tiny community center, footsteps from Wells' Trilby home.

While the number of Californians who log on to the Internet has increased since 2000 from 65 to 70 percent, a statewide survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California indicates there is a widening digital divide based on ethnicity, demographics and income.

Latinos and low-income residents are less likely to use computers and surf the Web than non-Hispanic whites and African Americans, according to the report.

Coglianese, the director of the Penn Program on Regulation, studied the topic and concluded, "Contrary to prevailing predictions, empirical research shows that e-rulemaking makes little difference: citizen input remains typically sparse."

David McClure, the CEO and president of the United States Internet Industry Association (USIIA), has penned a news report which claims that the digital divide in the United States is not caused by a lack of broadband availability but rather by slow broadband adoption.

Required by the E-Government Act of 2002, a General Services Administration study, released in January, recommended that the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) further explore government information access. Based on suggestions in the report, “Improving Access to the Internet -- A Report to Congress," IMLS started a two year-study, "User satisfaction with access to government information and services at public libraries and public access computing centers.”

As Fiber to the Home has offered Lafayette a place among the most forward-looking cities in the country, it has also raised questions about the propriety of government intervention into a market that was, to varying degrees depending on your point of view, adequately covered by the private sector.

Her Web site, Joan on Government, helps people navigate that world with useful links and tips for finding information, from tracking bills at the state Legislature to enrolling a child in kindergarten.